The Blue Guide by Carrie Williams Page A

to look out of the window as his honed pecs flex and then slacken with the movement of his arms.
    â€˜So anyway, how are you?’ says Jess, leaning towardsme over the table. ‘You’ve been a pain in the arse to get hold of. Mr Primadonna Ballerina been keeping you on your toes?’
    She stops when she sees my face, my averted eyes.
    â€˜You haven’t? Ally, tell me you haven’t.’
    I open my mouth to speak, but I can’t. I can hardly believe it all myself. I feel like I’m in some weird dream. I’m fucking Paco Manchega, I say to myself, and it sounds completely unreal. Maybe I just imagined the whole thing.
    Jess is right in my face now, hers all flushed and excited. Then she leans back, tries to look stern. ‘Hang on,’ she says. ‘Why are you looking so damn miserable if you’re copping off with one of the world’s great love gods? And why, more to the point, didn’t you ring me the minute this happened?’
    I slump down in my seat, wishing I wasn’t here, that I’d just stayed at home and drunk myself into a stupor. Jess is going to go ballistic when she hears what I have to say, and I don’t know if I can handle it.
    â€˜I’ll get you a drink,’ she says, relenting, tuned in now to my despondency and figuring it needs the softly-softly approach.
    â€˜So hit me with it,’ she says with a coaxing smile when she sits down again, placing a large glass of Cabernet Sauvignon on the table in front of me. ‘What’s the story?’
    â€˜He’s married,’ I say bluntly, and I watch as her face falls.
    â€˜Bloody hell, Ally, when did that happen?’
    â€˜A month ago. Her name’s Carlotta. She’s trying to be an actress.’ I look out of the window. ‘She’s nice, actually,’ I add. ‘In fact she’s making a lot of effort to be my friend. It’s her that I’m showing round while Paco struts his stuff, actually.’
    Jess leans forward to extract a cigarette from her pack, offering me one at the same time. I take it, and for a few moments we smoke in silence.
    â€˜So what happened?’ she asks at last, and I recount the whole tale for her, from my wank in the bath via our illicit doings in the stretch limo to his parting words at the oyster bar. As I’m talking, she alternates between anger and laughter, but when I’ve done she’s deeply serious.
    â€˜You have
got
to stop, Ally,’ she says, wagging a finger at me. ‘I don’t know what this guy thinks he’s playing at, but you’re on a crash course with disaster, no doubt about it. You don’t need me to tell you . . .’
    â€˜I don’t,’ I interrupt. ‘I knew exactly what you were going to say, and I would say exactly the same thing if it were you in my place:
get the hell out
.’ I feel in my pocket for some notes to go buy another round. ‘But admit it – you’d have done the same thing if the chance presented itself.’
    Jess looks at me through narrowed eyes. ‘That is
not
the point,’ she says, mock-sternly this time, and we laugh together. A weight lifts off my shoulders: this is what I came here for, I tell myself – to be reminded that problems are sometimes only as serious as we want to make them. I’ve been silly, but I have time to get out before anyone is hurt.
    Of course, now we’ve got the moral reprobation out of the way, Jess is desperate to know all the nitty gritty of my night and day with Paco – everything from the colour and make of his briefs to the size of his dick and how many times I came. She can’t help herself, asking more and more questions, and as I answer them I notice her head turning more and more frequently to look at the guy behind the bar. I sneak him a glance, and I realise with a secret thrill that he’s listening in on ourconversation now. He’s got a odd little smirk